Κυριακή, 22 Μαΐου 2016

Killing Heydrich, the Butcher of Prague

It
all began on September 30, 1938 when the Munich Agreement was signed.
With this agreement, England and France gave the Nazi dictator, Adolf
Hitler exactly what he wanted— the Sudetenland, the north western area
of Czechoslovakia. There was not a single Czech representative present
at the discussion. This was an act of the English Prime Minister,
Neville Chamberlin and an effort to appease the violent Germans. Of the
agreement, Winston Churchill stated: “We chose between shame and war;
now we have shame and war.” This planted the seeds for one of the most
famous assassinations during the European Theater of Operations of WWII.
Czechoslovakia
knew that the German’s Third Reich was headed into their country. It is
noted if you look at a map of Europe, Germany looks like a large animal
with the head of Czechoslovakia gripped between its teeth. As Hitler
and his army continued to grow in strength, the Nazi forces soon
swallowed Czechoslovakia whole.
During this time, a Third Reich
star would soon gain power and a reputation among the Nazi world. SS
General Reinhard Heydrich was a deputy to Heinrich Himmler. Heydrich
supervised the police and security operations in Germany. He also
directed Germany’s campaign to motivate the Jews to emigrate.

The
emigration plans didn’t work because it was seen as too cumbersome and
ineffective for such a massive population. Heydrich was one of the key
players in the “Final Solution” which is better known as the Holocaust.
This final solution resulted in genocide and torture. Victims that
suffered at the hands of Heydrich dubbed him the “Blonde Butcher”,
“Hangman” and later the “Butcher of Prague.”
Heydrich really had
his eyes on France to be the Protecktor, but in September 1941, Hitler
had other plans. Heydrich was sent to Czechoslovakia in order to get the
Czech people to bend to the German will. Heydrich saw this as an
opportunity to get closer to being sent to France.
As a
Protecktor, Heydrich would begin a campaign of torture and vile deeds in
order to break the will of the Czech people. He was to ruin the
Resistance (nearly 400 people were executed right away, while the rest
went into hiding). He also made an effort to Germanize the people. Here,
he also began rounding up the Jews like cattle and began shipping them
off to Terezin. Terezin was a Czech concentration camp that was once an
army fortress.
Heydrich
was said to ride around Prague in an open Mercedes without a security
escort. The brazen Nazi believed that the people of Czechoslovakia
feared him so much, they wouldn’t ever dream of laying harm to him.
During this time, the Czechoslovakian government in exile under
President Eduard Benes grew desperate for the people of Czechoslovakia
to rebel against the Germans. The people made a decision. What better
way to rebel and stand up to the Germans than to murder Heydrich?

Josef
Gabcik, a Slovak, and Jan Kubis, a Czech, volunteered to carry out the
assassination plot. The men knew they had very little chances of
survival, but it was a risk they were willing to take. On December 29,
1941, the men were flown to a location on the outskirts of Prague and
they parachuted down during the darkest hours of the night. Marie
Moravcova was a Red Cross volunteer and was deeply connected to the
Czech Resistance. She was one of the first to help hide the two
parachutists. Sergeant Josef Valcik and Lieutenant Adolf Opalka joined
Kubis and Gabcik. Karel Curda soon joined Opalka.
The Czech Underground was feeling the pressure. Members often
wondered who would be the next to be arrested, who could withstand the
torture and who would not. Kubis and Gabcik found it difficult to figure
out ways to entrap Heydrich during this time without raising suspicion
and bring danger to others. Eventually, they were able to contact
Prague’s Hradcany Castle. There they learned that Heydrich rode from his
residence that was outside of Prague, to his offices inside the castle.
This information was confirmed by the underground and it was said this
was a daily routine.
The
two brave men decided that the hilly area with sharp turns before the
bridge to enter the city would be where the assassination would take
place.
May 27th, 1942, the men positioned themselves on opposing
sides of the road at the location. Opalka and Valcik stood as lookouts
and signaled when Heydrich would be approaching—with no security, an
open Mercedes, and only a driver and himself in the vehicle. Gabcik and
Kubis prepared their weapons. When the car came close, Gabcik stepped
out with his machine gun. When he tried to shoot the gun, nothing
happened—it was jammed. Kubis stepped out from his hiding spot and
tossed an antitank grenade toward the car. When it detonated, Heydrich
was hit. The men and their lookouts fled from the scene.
Heydrich
was taken to Prague’s Bulovka Hospital where he was listed as
critically wounded. Heinrich Himmler sent his personal doctor. June 4th,
the Butcher of Prague died.
The Gestapo launched a frantic
manhunt to find the assailants of the assassination. The Czech people
refused to help the Nazi’s. Martial law was declared and the Gestapo
announced that if they discovered anyone who had helped or harbored the
assailants would be executed—no questions asked. Even though there were
mass arrests and executions without reason, the people of Czechoslovakia
remained silent. That is… Until Karel Curda betrayed everyone for a
mere $500,000 Reich marks.
Moravcova was the first home the
Gestapo ransacked. She ran to the bathroom and swallowed a cyanide
capsule so that she would avoid being captured. Her 21 year old son and
her husband were arrested, tortured, and eventually killed. This was a
common scene throughout Prague. The traitor Curda didn’t know that the
fugitives were hidden away deep inside a crypt in the Church of St.
Cyril and St. Methodius. It didn’t matter because the Gestapo learned of
their whereabouts.
Over
700 Gestapo surrounded the church. Opalka and Kubis were captured
outside the crypt on a high balcony. They fought with great resolve
during a two-hour long gun fight; but, they were finally killed on that
balcony.
Gabcik, Valcik, and two other parachutists hid further
down in a spot now known to be a lower crypt. The Gestapo threw gas
bombs because bullets would not work. The men inside the crypt threw
bombs back. The Gestapo found a hole in the floor and when a soldier was
lowered down, the parachutists shot them.
Growing tired of the
back and forth, the Gestapo finally dynamited the floor and a rainstorm
of bullets filled the crypt. This siege ended with four distinct shots
fired from below. It is believed that the men committed suicide with the
remaining bullets they had left.
After the violence ended, the church’s Bishop Gorazd, his priests and lay leaders were executed by Nazi firing squads.
The
reprisals from the Nazi’s were relentless. The village of Lidice was
decimated. All 200 men were shot, infants who appeared to look Aryan
were given to German families to raise. Children were sent east to
extermination camps in Poland. Women were sent to Terezin to wait for
their turns to travel east to the camps. The Lidice residents who were
not present that day were hunted down and later executed. The village of
Lezaky soon met the same fate as the residents of Lidice. All in all,
thousands of people died.
At the end of the war, Prague was left
with its historical integrity still intact. Berlin, however, was not so
lucky. As Hitler’s last gift to the German people, he lay waste to
Berlin—leaving it a massive pile of rubble. In 1947, the traitor Curda
was hung for his betrayal.
In Berlin, the Allied bombers destroyed
the headquarters of the Gestapo and the SS. Now stands a modern
indoor/outdoor museum in its place. The Topography of Terror is a
graphic display of the years of 1933 to 1945 that the Nazi’s were in
power. Be warned, this display is not for the faint of heart. Outside
the museum, there are photographic and other exhibits that fill an open
air trench which was once SS prison cells.
Directly behind the
trench is a preserved section of the Berlin Wall. As many people know,
when the Soviets occupied East Germany after the war, the Czech people
and many parts of Eastern Europe endured another 45 years of
suppression. The Wall stands as a symbol of that suppression and is
marked throughout the city with cobblestones along the exact path where
the wall once stood.